Dave Read

2011 A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

Just as Tanglewood is important to the Berkshires, so too is it important to Garrison Keillor, who told the audience in 2000 during the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood that it was where he and his wife had their second date. Keillor and his nonpariel radio crew have come back every year since, putting on shows in the Koussevitsky Music Shed on the Saturday before the Boston Symphony Orchestra arrives for their summer residency.

It is an aspect of Garrison Keillor’s genius that he can basically do the same thing week after week year after year for decades and have each program feel like a singular work of art. The lineup for the 12th annual broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood hasn’t been announced, but it takes only a glance at a list of guests from the first eleven shows to be assured that it will be a winner. Follow the links to see our review, plus photos and/or video from that show.

Tanglewood picnic with Garrison Keillor and Andrea Suchy

This video clip of Garrison Keillor and Andrea Suchy serenading Tanglewood patrons minutes before the start of the June 28, 2010 live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood shows an element of the show unknown to the radio audience.

An extra benefit from attending the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion are the encores, such as these from the 2009 show posted to our Youtube channel:

James Taylor and friends at Tanglewood Ozawa Hall

June 30, 2011 performance; by Dave Read

James Taylor and Friends was the billing for the first of the four James Taylor concerts at Tanglewood during the 2011 season. It attracted a capacity crowd to Seiji Ozawa Hall, where the audience spilled over the rise leaving some members of lawn nation with a better view of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s old place than of Mr. Taylor. Playing second fiddle to the headliner, just barely, was mother nature, who was lauded all night for delivering just the sort of setting June and the Berkshires were meant to be presented in.

We need to resist the temptation to describe Taylor’s performance as being measured, as one would expect at the outset of a run of four concerts in five days. The concert felt like a recital, which befits the venue and it’s 1,200 seats – intimate in comparison to the 5,100 seat Koussevitsky Music Shed, where the other three concerts will take place. It was a discrete event, featuring everybody’s neighbor and friend, accompanied by his longtime keyboards player and vocal quartet, augmented by wife Kim, whose birthday it was, plus a contingent from the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and BSO cellist Owen Young.

Taylor is as expert with patter as he is with the songs so that an evenings’ performance coheres; without making the audience feel like anything other than peers, Taylor talks about being in the studio with Paul McCartny and George Harrison – in 1968, for heaven’s sake – that’s when for all anybody else knew, the Beatles were rearranging the universe. But James Taylor was auditioning his song “Something in the way she moves,” which not only scored him an Apple Records contract, but also inspired Harrison to write “Something,” which is on everybody’s list of best Beatles songs.

In what may be an indication that more of the audience was from away than is usually the case for a James Taylor Tanglewood concert, the Stockbridge reference in Sweet Baby James aroused not much more than a loud smattering of applause rather than the roar of recognition remembered from earlier shows.

Women of Will at Shakespeare and Co.

June 2, 2011 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

The summer 2011 schedule at Shakespeare and Company features Women of Will, which is such a dynamic and engrossing theatrical experience that it seems one must review it only briefly with superlatives for author Tina Packer’s concept in creating it and a listing of the wide ranging ground it covers-scenes in which she, supported by Nigel Gore, brings the numerous characters involved to life.

Or, one may attempt, as I shall, in a longer piece, to explain the theatrical ground it covers and how well it all works. Be forewarned.

Among the many hats my eldest son wears is that of an Equity actor, one he earned in a long-ago summer at the BTF. Although these days he is mainly busy trying to become King of Kindle by getting his many hard cover books onto the Net, his love of Shakespearian theatre brings him often from NYC to the Berkshires (where in 1960 he played Lysander in an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the terraces of a Lenox estate, then a boarding school.)

As we drove home from the performance, his first comment concerned how, despite years of studying Shakespeare, acting Shakespeare, and viewing the plays in many theatre settings, he had never before had the opportunity of seeing staged the Joan of Arc scenes, from the early War of the Roses cycle, performed, and was delighted with how movingly we had just seen them played, and how wonderful it had been to experience them. How powerful they had been and what a useful opening to his understanding of what Tina Packer was to unfold for us as the evening proceeded.

And in deed it was!

For years the talented and dedicated Packer has been living with her dream of dedication to the Bard-a five part journey covering all his plays created from 1588 until his retirement in 1613. The five parts of Packer’s journey thus begin with the neophyte Shakespeare (oh so talented even then but still groping for expression) and expressing through the plays the attitude of the period in which he was living, to roles women played in the period in which they lived, and how they were perceived in the male world.

His Joan La Pucelle scenes are is the ones in which Shakespeare’s audiences in his Henry VI cycle of histories produced in 1589-90, would have delighted. because they so clearly fit their attitude to the period. Joan in our world has been granted sainthood. And in contemporary drama Shaw has paid her wry homage and Anouilh written so poetically and sympathetically in “The Lark”.

Shakespeare’s Joan is a magnificent character to show us Tina’s thesis. Her chronological journey thru the scenes in which Joan appears deal with Elizabethan attitudes toward the role she attempted to play and how she was forced, as a woman, daring to take part in a man’s world, to be destroyed.

In this opening play of Tina’s 5 part series-The Warrior Woman, from violence to negotiation, not only do we encounter Joan, but also Kate, a shrew who must be tamed, and Margaret of Anjou, who audaciously wanted the throne of England -each a vibrant and passionate woman who lost in fighting for her will in a man’s world.

Skillfully designed and played by Packer and her wry and as written dominating partner, Nigel Gore, these scenes are woven into a self-contained evening-one that surprisingly includes the scene from the War of the Roses in which Gore as dominating male Rutland has his tragic moment, the news of the death of his son, in which he can act dynamically and show us how briefly even the “inferior ” sex could at times wound, if not trumph.

In these scenes and the others in Part I, the women struggle as warriors from violence to negotiation. And even if one does not know the entire play, Tina’s intent and Shakespeare’s attitude are easy to follow since between each scene is a dialog with the audience that pulls us into the intent of both Tina and of what she finds in that of Shakespeare. Gore assists her, often with physical business and stage movement in the audience contact scenes. The attitude of both actors toward the audience is warm and friendly as well as serious, informative and at times joking.

While as planned Woman of Will spans in chronological order the entire ouvre of Shakespeare, in each case dominated by a theme concerning the position of women in the environment of the play, and gradually showing how it shifts.

The complete journey through the plays is divided into 5 cycles, each lasting about two hours, performed on different evenings. One can pick and choose if unable to see all five performances.

The chronological material is divided thus:

Part I. Warrior Woman-From Violence to Nightmare (low expectations for women in a man’s world)
Part II. New Knowledge-The Sexual Merges with the Spiritual (Shakespeare sees sexuality can be a spiritual journey as plays considered range from Romeo and Juliet ro Troilus and Cresida and are as merry as Midsummer Nights Dream and as dark as Measure for Measure or Antony and Cleo.
Part III. Living Underground – Or, Dying to Tell the Truth – (Middle period in Shakespeare, if these women stay dressed as women they go mad or die -plays range from As You Like it to Hamlet.
Part IV. Chaos Come Again, the Lion Eats the Wolf (Shakespeare’s period of despair at what happens when women want a different voice in society. Disaster follows in Macbeth and Lear and others.
Part V. Maiden Phoenix – Or, The Daughter Redeems the Father. (Shakespeare changes his story and turns to myth and fairy tales in the Four Romances:; Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, plays in which the daughters discover the ways to save the situation, usually in relation to the father.

If this sounds complex, it is not so in performance, based on the presentation of Part I which this reviewer found an amazing journey through the early plays which so well expressed the views of the man and the plays and the gradually changing view of women that are expressed in them.

One not only is entertained by a fast paced, information packed, and expertly presented two hours of theatre, but delighted with the subtle and competent presentation of the actors. Packer and Gore work seamlessly together. It is a performance you will long remember. I know one small thing that I will never forget. As Joan, Packer’s facial expression, very clear from my seat, changed so from her first buoyant moment when she entered happy, with the aid of heaven, to serve her country, to the snarling, suddenly older woman, unsympathetic and ugly under English captivity. Of such small moments are remembered ones often granted us.

Woman of Will works on many levels-any amount of Shakespeare experience is enough to gain much from this one.

Credits go also to Director Eric Tucker who has guided his actors well, to Govane Lohbauer for designing costumes that served all scenes with an addition here or a subtraction there, to set designer Patrick Brennan whose seemingly bare stage could become anywhere and did. A tall bare ladder served eloquently.

This play goes off on tour in the Fall. We are fortunate to have it in Lenox now.

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis at Tanglewood

June 27, 2003 Article by Dave Read

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performed at Tanglewood June 27, 2003.

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis gave a spell-binding concert in the Shed at Tanglewood for an audience of 5,378; two sets with the whole contingent, 15 brilliant jazz players duded up in matching Brooks Brothers suits, followed by a mini-gig featuring Mr. Marsalis accompanied by the rhythm section and saxophonist Wes “Warmdaddy” Anderson. And you gotta know something about spelling to write about it because the titles of the compositions played include words such as “rhapsody,” “diminuendo,” “crescendo,” and “blues.”

This is the LCJO’s “Rhythm is our Business” tour so let’s mention the rhythm section first: Eric Lewis, piano, Carlos Henriquez, bass, Herlin Riley, drums. Second thing to say about them is that the second set was their’s, a set consisting of but one number, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which we didn’t time but must have run 45-50 minutes. The first segment of the piece built up to Henriquez’ haunting bass solo with the rest of the band chanting/intoning “a love supreme, a love supreme…”. Instead of being a tasty coda, that just gave way to a searing sax solo and then came “top professor” Eric Lewis’ virtuoso piano solo that not only kept the audience rapt for a long time but also seemed to stun his colleagues, who peered at him in awe and looked at each other with expressions that ranged from disbelief to joy.

All the while in the back sat Herlin Riley, keeping time, always smiling, glancing over his left shoulder at Mr. Marsalis, and then he started hitting the rim and sides of his drums and we were off to rhythm heaven – all we can report is that it’s a beautiful place. Mr. Riley’s tour de force elicited movement from everybody in the house, of course, except for professor Lewis, who looked as if he were alone in a mountain-top monastary, head bowed before an altar. The collegial leader Wynton Marsalis, who was a warm and witty m.c. throughout the concert, and spoke of his special affection for Tanglewood (but mumbled the not-that-long-ago year of his T.M.C. fellowship!), remained seated for his own lofty solo which coalesced the extraordinary rendition of Coltrane’s eloquent composition, and brought the most-appreciative audience to its feet for a prolonged and heart-felt ovation.

sourced from a medley of composers

Lastly, the first half consisted of the Marsalis composition Back to Basics followed by the novelty of a 3-minute rendition of Fletcher Hendersons’s arrangement of Ravel’s Bolero, then LCJO trombonist Ron Westray’s arrangement of the Charles Mingus tone poem The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Billy Strayhorn’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and closing with Duke Ellington’s Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.

Marsalis and the LCJO last performed here on July 25, 1999, sharing the stage with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for a program in celebration of the centennary of Duke Ellington‘s birth. The featured composition that night was Edvard Grieg’ “Peer Gynt Suite” and the program alternated between Marsalis leading the LCJO in Billy Strayhorn and Ellington’s arrangement with Ozawa leading the BSO in the Grieg score of the same passages. Pretty cool.
Members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra:

Wess Anderson – sax
Seneca Black – trumpet,
Walter Blanding – tenor sax,
Vincent Gardner – trombone,
Victor Goines – sax,clarinet,
Andre Hayward – trombone,
Carlos Henríquez – bass,
Ryan Kisor – trumpet,
Eric Lewis – piano,
Ted Nash – sax, clarinet,
Marcus Printup – trumpet,
Herlin Riley – drums,
Joe Temperley – sax, clarinet,
Ron Westray – trombone.

BSO names replacements for James Levine

The schedule of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2011 Tanglewood season has been revised with the naming of 5 conductors to replace James Levine, who withdrew from all of his scheduled Tanglewood appearances on the advice of his doctors. Charles Dutoit will lead the BSO’s July 8 Opening Night Gala Concert—an all-Italian program with excerpts from Bellini’s Norma and Verdi’s I lombardi, plus music of Rossini and Respighi—and the BSO’s July 9 performance of Berlioz’s Requiem.

Making his BSO debut, Finnish conductor John Storgaards, Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, will lead the July 16 all-Sibelius program with featuring Nikolaj Znaider in the composer’s Violin Concerto. French conductor Emmanuel Krivine will lead the July 24 all-Ravel program featuring pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in both the Piano Concerto in G and Concerto for the Left Hand 24. Hans Graf, Music Director of the Houston Symphony, will conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 on a program with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414, with soloist Leon Fleisher, on July 29.

In addition, the esteemed Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos—who was already scheduled at Tanglewood to conduct the BSO on August 5 and 12, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra on August 14—and TMC faculty conductor Stefan Asbury will now take the podium for the gala Tanglewood on Parade concert on the evening of August 2, joining the originally scheduled conductors Christoph Eschenbach and John Williams.

2005 Tanglewood on Parade review

July 26, 2005 Article by Dave Read

The 2005 Tanglewood on Parade may be remebered as the Five Conductors show for the parade of maestros to the podium in the Serge Kousevitsky Music Shed during the gala concert that culminated the all-day musical celebration for the benefit of the Tanglewood Music Center, now 65 years old. By nightfall, an audience of 12,345 had massed at the Shed after an afternoon of recitals, concerts, and demonstrations throughout the campus by students of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center.

First to the podium was Music Director James Levine to lead the B.S.O. in Berlioz’ Roman Carnival Overture. Wearing a tuxedo on a very hot day, the ruddy-faced maestro wrung a rousing performance from his casually clad players. So swept up was he in the final measure that it looked like he was twirling a lariat, about to rope a brace of basses. Smart programming that, forcing the audiences attention back to the delights of music and away from the joy of the fancy picnic.

Up next was Boston Pops principal guest conductor Bruce Hangen to lead the Pops in the Symphonic Dances from T.M.C. alumnus Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. This was a bravura performance that showcased both the brilliance of the orchestra and the genius of the composer. There were moments when you could’ve mistook Hangen and the Pops for Benny Goodman and his Big Band, so swell did they swing!

Then Pops conductor emeritus John Williams took over, and delighted the audience that had so warmly welcomed him by conducting the Pops in two passages from his own Star Wars score. Maestro Levine came back onstage after intermission, straddling a chair backwards like a kibitzer at a card table, to invoke the spirit of Serge Koussevitsky, express his feelings about being at Tangelwood, and to introduce his predecessor, “colleague and friend” Seiji Ozawa.

The beaming Ozawa sprinted to center stage, hugged Levine, glanced at the adoring audience, clasped hands with four or five T.M.C. players and got right to work leading the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in a thrilling performance of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3.

They simply blew the roof off the joint, these young musicians who didn’t know each other until last month and who weren’t even born until Seiji Ozawa was into the second decade of his Tanglewood tenure. The nimble Ozawa, whose contract with the Vienna State Opera was recently extended through the 2009-10 season, was lithe as ever on the podium – a whole body conducting manner that’s both commanding and eloquent.

Frequent Tanglewood guest conductor Hans Graf was the right choice to lead the combined orchestras in the grand finale, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Wearing a white tunic and projecting a stately demeanor, he conducted a fine aural war, satisfying our appetites for the lush and romantic as well as the savage and martial.

(There were 4 conductors on the Tanglewood on Parade program in 2001, Seiji Ozawa’s last as B.S.O. Music Director, including Andre Previn. A new composition by Chris Brubeck was given its Tanglewood debut, and Ozawa was given an authentic Civil War cannon.)